the gift tax exemption was raised to the same level as the estate tax: the same $5.25 million. it was supposed to go down to a million, so this is a good opportunity for people to take advantage of this, because with the new budget proposal, there is a good chance they could lower it back to the old $1 million, and this way they could be grandfathered. if that is taken away, their estates won't be subject to this tax, and the growth will be out of the people's estates too. - i know a number of years ago, grandparents who wanted to give just a straight gift to children, for example, it was $10,000 a year. now that is up to $14,000, and that is a real boon for grandparents to sort of offload their cash. - right. and if you are married you can double that to $28,000, and if you have a child or grandchild who is married, you can double that again to $56,000. but there are a couple of exceptions that can increase it, such as if the grandparent has a child, say, in college, if he pays the college tuition directly to the school, it doesn't eat into the $14,000 exemption. - so you stil